


Til The Morning Comes

by Thysanotus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-26
Updated: 2005-11-26
Packaged: 2018-10-27 07:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thysanotus/pseuds/Thysanotus
Summary: Millicent explores being truly alone. Five bells ring. The ocean laps the shore. And somewhere, an old folk song plays.





	Til The Morning Comes

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Partly inspired by the poem Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor, and written as a Christmas present for [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=bluerose16)[](http://www.livejournal.com/users/bluerose16/)**bluerose16**. Merry Christmas, Rosie (No, I’m sorry. I don’t know why this became your Christmas present).  


* * *

Life seemed so simple, before. Before five bells measured out her life, and four words, three letters, two eyes, and a kiss sealed her fate.  
  
It is another night. Another place. The darkness is the same, however. Millicent wonders idly how the darkness contained in her memory can be every bit as dark as the darkness in the cell. She is arguing with Pansy about something inconsequential. The silhouettes on the blood-red curtains have a life of their own as they billow in the breeze.  
  
The words they fling at each other could be used to blow up the world. No fuse or detonator is required, each word is a bomb in itself. They throw the bright shining pins over their shoulders until it almost seems that the reflection from the glistening mountains behind then should blind the other.  
  
Neither is willing to back down, to be the first to break, to whisper apologies in the dead of night, hoping the other is asleep, but knowing she is lying there, tense and unyielding, with the gloom allowing the salty track of tears to dry on her face.  
  
Millicent is always the first one to shatter. She cries noisily on the bathroom floor, huddled into the shadows by the sink. She tries to shrink in on herself as much as possible, her broad shoulders curving, knees drawn to her chest, one hand over her mouth and the other over her eyes.  
  
The gasping sobs are what give her away. Pansy chides her gently afterwards, saying that she always knows when Millicent is crying in the bathroom – the echoes reverberate and show her location as clearly as if she’d drawn a map pinpointing her location in red crayon. But Pansy says this with a smile, and takes Millicent to the kitchen, where she feeds her on briney pickles with more tenderness than Millicent has ever seen before.  
  
Five bells break the still night. Their cold timbre echoes in the seagull’s cries that swirl in the here and now, and Millicent starts awake. The bells. Pansy had murmured and rolled over in her sleep, while Millicent lay next to her in a cold sweat.  
  
She knew those bells. Had caressed them in a small shop in Diagon Alley, while Pansy had been arguing over the price of snapdragons. They were a curious alloy of metals, to give the bells tone and richness, the shopkeeper had said. Mostly, though, they were silver, and this was their colour, the metal deeply graved with intricate patterns that compelled the eye to follow them around and around until one became dizzy with the effort.  
  
They chimed softly as she put them down, regretfully. Flicking a fingernail against the small bell on the end, the pure tones echoed throughout the shop, and Pansy had glanced back at her, the quirk of her mouth reassuring Millicent. It was alright. Pansy had joined her then, and silver had bought silver. The bells rested in the entryway, and Pansy would ring them jokingly when she arrived home from work.  
  
For them to be ringing now, in the stillness of the night, is somehow wrong. Millicent wraps her gown around herself securely, clutching her wand in sweat-damp fingers. She pads out of the bedroom, intent on silencing the distracting tinkle that shatters the night into smaller and smaller pieces, but there is a step behind her, and something drops down over her head.  
  
She knows nothing more.  
  
Five bells call her back from the edge. Four words drop into her consciousness.  
  
“You have betrayed us.”  
  
She recoils from the implications of that sentence, letting those four words sink to the bottom of her mind, to a place where she can retrieve them later, turn them over wonderingly, examine the feelings. Later.  
  
She feels the disturbance in the air next to her as Pansy - she assumes that it’s Pansy, she can’t see through the hood over her face – collapses on the floor. She is vaguely aware of the voice ordering them to be removed, and she trips and stumbles her way along dark corridors, but the allure and shape of those four words are distracting.  
  
Later, Pansy crawls into her lap. They are both bruised, broken, their softness spilling out. The cell is cold, the air damp. Pansy is whimpering softly, her breath a hot mist against Millicent’s cheek.  
  
“Betrayed them?” The words are little more than a whisper, drifting into Millicent’s ear, where they burrow into her brain.  
  
“Yes.” It is a simple word. Three letters, one vowel, two consonants. The widening of the mouth, sibilance at the ending. The betraying hiss leaves her mouth, and an echoing hiss lands across her face.  
  
Pansy flings herself backwards almost in the same moment as her hand lands on Millicent’s face. It’s her turn to hiss, and she does it well, stalking to the other side of the cell and sitting with her back to Millicent.  
  
Millicent refuses to cry. She can feel the welted hand raising along her cheekbone, and imagines the red outline flushed darkly on her skin. She wishes for the sound of her name panted, for the smooth cry of gulls, for the tinkle of a set of bells, for something to drown out the echo of the three letters graved in her soul.  
  
The days blur together. There is no quarter from Pansy, who turns her face away and refuses to speak, despite Millicent’s wordless pleading. She ignores Millicent’s sobs, her offered comfort and her need.  
  
One day they are removed from the cell. The break in the monotonous routine gives Millicent hope. She strides, almost eagerly, towards the chamber where they are led. Perhaps they have reached a turning point in the war. Perhaps they are to be offered a deal. She frantically attempts to recall any useful information she might possess. The whereabouts of the Order’s headquarters. The location of safe houses. Plans she heard Granger and the werewolf discussing one night when she came upon them unexpectedly after a meeting with Dumbledore.  
  
But when her hood is removed, and she stares into the chill grey of Draco Malfoy’s eyes, she knows it is to no avail. On her left, Pansy is stuttering excuses, begging for her life. Blaming Millicent. Millicent stands straight and tall.  
  
Draco’s eyes fix Millicent’s. They offer no forgiveness. They ask no questions. Truth is in them, as is fanaticism, and rage, but the simple truth – that she will die here – reflects from his eyes and into Millicent’s own. This is why it comes as such a surprise to see Draco lift his wand, and point it at Pansy’s forehead. The other girl is trembling on the floor, unaware of Draco’s intent.  
  
“Avada Kedavra.” The words are spoken softly, but salaciously, and as the curtain of green light surrounds Pansy, Millicent is sure she does not mistake the pleasure that crosses Draco’s face.  
  
She breaks free of the arms holding her, and tries to throw herself on Draco. She will bite his throat out. Rip. Tear. Chew through his carotid artery using her blunt, cow-like teeth. All the better to cause him pain while she’s doing so, she thinks grimly.  
  
Held like a fly in amber, she can’t even struggle. Left to watch while Draco rises and fastidiously brushes off his clothing, a tear slides silently down her cheek. That the three of them should have come to this. That it all should have come to this.  
  
She is unable to do anything as Draco kneels to kiss Pansy’s forehead. She looks peaceful, at least. Unmarked, save for the bruises on her throat. Draco rises, and leaves the chamber without a backwards glance.  
  
Millicent is returned to the cell, and Pansy’s body is brought in sometime later. She looks no different. Perhaps she is only sleeping. Millicent shakes her, licks her earlobe. Tickles her last rib, in the slight hollow that is Pansy’s only ticklish spot. The smooth white skin appeals for mercy. She bends her head, kisses Pansy’s dry, chapped lips. They taste salty, the tang of the ocean, tears, memories of hot salty fluid while above her Pansy writhes and breathes her name to the waiting night.  
  
She weights the silky softness of Pansy’s hair in one hand. The black river pulls at the eye, leaving one adrift, rudderless, spinning frantically searching for land, a refuge from the storms that batter at your spirit.  
  
She finds it in the pale curve of the body, limbs splayed, the sweet salty scent rising from the tangled sheets. The cries of the gulls rise as she kneels to drink, salt flowing fresh and sweet.  
  
The barren grey place inside of her refuses to be soothed. She cannot believe they’d ever die for these sins, as the moonlight shafts in through the barred window, painting silver stripes across the floor and bathing her in cold crisp light.  
  
The window is high, and set deep in the surrounding stone, but sometimes she can catch the tang of the ocean, and a wild cry rises from deep inside her, before she resolutely quashes it, returning to her own ocean.  
  
Exploring the once-damp folds, the darkening pale-peach shell nipples, she wonders dully how different all this would be if Pansy were still alive. The body she clutches close would be warm, not clammy and sea-cool. The eyes would spark with fury, not be glazed over with the rime of salt.  
  
Knowing there is no other escape. Knowing she is destined to remain here until she goes mad, wondering if she is mad. That if somewhere her body lies in stiff white sheets, their starched embrace the only warmth she feels, while above her Pansy sheds cold salt tears.  
  
No. She twists the flesh on the inside of her wrist. This is reality. Pansy is dead. She wraps a black river around her throat. It will hurt, at first. This body is attached to life.  
  
As her vision shrinks, she remembers the one kiss. The kiss. Pansy’s lips upon her own. It was warmth, and security, and love. And as Millicent sails into that good night, the recollection of that kiss shepherds her.  
  
 _I’m going to give you til the morning comes_  
Til the morning comes  
Til the morning comes.  
I’m only waiting til the morning comes  
Til the morning comes  
Til the morning comes


End file.
